War of the Bots, part 1
by GreatOverseer
Summary: Robloxia is slowly falling. A new threat is emerging from a source none could have foreseen: the AI Bots of Robloxia. Under a new revolutionary leader they set off to conquer the planet, and from there the universe. As a final line of defense, the Admins enlist all the heroes of Robloxia's past, to fight for its future... but is there more to this than meets the eye?
1. Chapter 1

The spine of the Bloxburg mountains rose high into the cool air. A chill wind brushed flecks of snow off the peaks, onto the gaggle of tourists that stood in awed wonder at the sight of the annual alignment of Shadeblox and Testblox. The two planets, one pitch black and the other a deep green, almost melded into an oval, but not quite, and gave off an eerie glow that was but an accent to the harsh light of the sun. Dynamic lighting, since its introduction in late Grand Year 2013, had shaped the world in its wake, for the better.

As the tourists watched the majestic splendor of the alignment, they failed to detect, just out of the range of hearing, a hard whirring of blades. Helicopter blades, to be precise. Far to the west, three unmarked, black metal pods thundered over the hilly terrain of the Great Desert. They stirred the small nutrient-starved trees at ground level with the gusts of wind coming off their rotors. As they neared the cusp of the Bloxburg mountains, some decision was apparently made, for they split in three directions and continued thundering on, only this time on three different paths.

The foremost tourist's camera shutter flashed brightly, saving a screenshot of the alignment. Almost precisely at that moment, the sound of the helicopters became audible. A tourist at the back turned to his left, and saw a huge form in the sky. He pointed at it, shouting. The helicopter slowed as it drew nearer to the tourists. It came to a complete halt over the gaggle, and slowly began to turn its nose downwards. As it did so, the sun shone through the transparent plastic front windows, revealing that the pilot was conspicuously absent.

"The hell?" a tourist in the middle of the group said under her breath.

"Looks like it's just hovering on its own," said another in Korbloxian.

"Nah, that can't be right," said a third tourist, also in Korbloxian.

Concerned chatter sprung up within the ranks of the tourists. The guide, who had just left the tour bus, did not see the helicopter. He stared at the tourists as they looked at something high up in the sky.

"What're you all looking at," he asked in Robloxian. The (mainly Korbloxian) tourists, not possessing the knowledge to reply, simply pointed in unison at the black vehicle sitting blatantly in the bright gray mid-morning sky. The guide looked. "What the fuck?" he muttered, taking out a pair of binoculars. "There's nobody in that chopper."

The chopper's landing lights activated, giving an already eerily green ambience a slightly redder tint. Sharp prongs unfolded from the front and back of the helicopter's chassis. The craft began to descend. Light gleamed off the bodywork. The rotors sent intense wafts of air into the crowd, and soon they were greeted with a wall of gray mountain dust.

Meanwhile the tour guide, nonplussed, was trying to contact his higher-ups.

"Guys, guys," he yelled into his cell phone. "We have a potential problem! There's a pilotless helicopter just... hovering above us! ... No I'm NOT on crack! Get some help down here!"

_"Okay," _a tinny voice said from the other end. _"We'll send some probes to see what's up. Sound good?"_

"Yes already!" the tour guide screamed.

_"Alright mate. Just keep the tourists in your sight."_

The tour guide cut the call, and shoved the phone into his pocket. He stormed out of the bus, to see that the helicopter had fully landed and the swathe of disturbed soil had settled back to its normal state. There was a disconcerting whine coming from the vehicle. The landing light was flashing on and off in a specific pattern. Slight movements could be detected from within the body of the helicopter, through the small, murky plastic windows embedded in the side walls.

_"Dan hjedol grohjan?"_ a tourist whispered to his colleague.

The tour guide cleared his throat.

"Er, everyone," he began, "I just wanna say that there's a-absolutely nothing to worry about. The tour agency's sending help, so just keep calm and there's nothing to worry about! Nothing!"

_"Mehejal burjghe," _the tourist snorted, derisively. The tour guide felt his hope sink, but he kept up the facade.

"A-as you can see," he continued, "we're in the beautiful Bloxburg mountains! Now these mountains were colonized by the-"

With a sudden screech, the side doors of the helicopter snapped open, and a dozen or so metallic Robloxians lunged from the shadows carrying dark gray plasma rifles. The tour guide turned in shock, just in time to see the first shot enter into his forehead and fry his brain.

The tourists scattered, but they were blocked by the tour bus parked across the road. The metal men fired wildly into the crowd. Most of the tourists were killed within the first five seconds, and those who survived were quickly trapped within the tour bus. Inside, one of the tourists, a purple-haired female wearing a winter coat, poked her head over the window ledge. She saw the robots - yes, they were most definitely robots - milling about outside, checking their weapons methodically. One discharged its weapon into a nearby cliff face, sending some loose stones flying.

"What the hell's happening?" she whispered in Korbloxian.

Her companions, most of them old people and kids, shivered in fear at the back of the bus, ducked as low as they could manage. She looked back at them; then she looked out the window again, fearing that she would be seen and shot. But the robots weren't looking at the bus when she saw them next. They were looking into the sky, for bearing down on them was a cloud of small objects. The next instant, the cloud was at ground level. The girl saw that they had the logo of the tour agency on them, and her heart leaped! They were saved.

Her glee did not last for long, however. The small drones, not pausing to fire at the armed robots, turned and instead fired at the tour bus. There was a dreadful tumult. The girl held her arms over her head and screamed as the walls began to blister and crack from the waves of bullets. An old man, farther towards the back of the bus, was hit through the wall, and she watched in horror as he died in agony. Then, wasting no time, she began to crawl towards the survivors. They were huddled together, and gave her fearful looks.

"Everyone listen!" she shouted. They jumped a little. She continued, pointing towards a small panel in the bus wall: "There is an escape hatch right here! If we can go through it we can escape from the side they aren't shooting at! Are you in?"

"Get on with it, Kailas!" a middle aged woman replied hoarsely.

"Then crawl through," the girl ordered. "Quick!"

She watched as they began to exit the vehicle, which was slowly but steadily becoming a half of one. The last refugee, a little old lady in a black and yellow robe, gave her a sad look before vanishing from sight. With that, the girl checked to see that the drones and armed robots had spotted the runaways. They had not. She clambered out of the bus, and it turned out to be just in time, for a lucky shot fired by an armed robot at random found its mark somewhere around the region of the bus's fuel valve.

She dared not look behind her as the earth shook. She only ran faster, beckoning the others to move with her. Smoke began to roil, fanning out in front of them, disturbed by their scampering feet...

OOO

Builderman faced the Council of Admins, a grave look on his face. His dark eyebrows were set in a worried position, and the eyes underneath were equally concerned.

"Gentlemen," he began, "I have bad news... news that involves the whole of Robloxia... and which may jeopardize our personal safety." He looked around the oval conference table meaningfully. "A major breach of trust has been committed. We have to retaliate with full force or we shall be crushed."

"Well, tell us, Builderman," Telamon snapped, slicking back his brown hair and eyeing the head admin.

"Today," Builderman said in hushed tones, "I ordered a sandwich for breakfast. I asked for no mustard on it. _They gave me mustard._"

"You're fucking kidding me!" Dusek exploded from across the table. "You motherfucking told me that this was important!"

Builderman was near-catatonic with laughter, rolling about in his office chair, bouncing off the walls, howling his head off. His orange hard hat lay abandoned on the conference table. Telamon, Dusek, and most of the other Admins and Moderators fumed, sedentary in their chairs, arms crossed.

"Oh my Admin, guys, did you even _see _the looks on your faces?" Builderman gasped, teary-eyed. "You looked so _serious! _I mean, come on, that was the oldest trick in the book!"

"Fuck you, mate," Telamon growled. "For a moment, I was _just about _to send the Admin Guard in, but you _bloody blew it!_"

"You gave Wukong a heart attack!" Tarabyte said, throwing her hands up in the air. "Thank Admin he has twelve of the things, or this whole meeting'd go to shit!"

"This meeting already went to shit," Dusek muttered under his breath.

"Oh, seriously, all you people, don't you remember when we had _fun?_" Builderman asked. "Ever since RoWar 1, you guys've been moping about talking about business... well, where's the fun anymore?"

"We have... jobs, Builderman," Telamon said. "We gotta take 'em seriously or we'll be screwed over."

"Bloody true," agreed Dusek.

"But if we take 'em too seriously, then it'll be..." Builderman began.

There was silence, both enraged and dumbfounded, from the rest of the Admins. Builderman felt his heart sink.

"... be too dark," he finished, somewhat lamely.

"Look, someday, Builderman," Telamon said, standing up and glaring right at him, "you'll realize the world is a more dangerous, morbid, and dare I say dark place than it's ever been. Robloxia is at the brink of war with the Hadad Empire, the value of the Robux is falling, we're in debt to larger worlds... I mean, don't get me wrong, we're still powerful, but we're losing that power year by year. We've let that happen by being happy and accepting, no scrutiny, no nothing. But over the last few months, we've learned to treat things with care, give our fullest effort... and, suffice to say, some would remark that this planet ran better under Tarabyte's reign."

"Psheh, don't remind me," Tarabyte groaned.

"Okay, okay, I get it. I'm not doing it right." Builderman threw up his hands. "I suppose fun doesn't pay anymore."

He faced Telamon.

"It's free?" he said. "You say 'IT'S FREE!', but it's the greatest tax on our society we've ever known!"

Builderman kicked his chair away and walked stiffly out of the room.

The rest of the Admins watched as the glass doors to the meeting hall closed with a _snik!_

"I - I didn't mean to," Telamon stammered. "Er... do you think I went a little far?"

There was silence from the rank.

"I sort of agree with Builderman," said Reese McBlox, eagle-headed community manager of Admin Island. Her dark eyes surveyed the room keenly as her golden-beaked head swiveled to face Telamon. "We are too dark. Far too dark to keep on going the way we have. The only reason we got through RoWar 1 and RoWar 2 was that we still had a good spot to go back to. Now, I think we're just folding up into plots and counterplots."

"You can't just agree with him," Tarabyte said. "Of all the plots and counterplots... you've been involved in none of them!"

"Like they say, it doesn't take a good artist to recognize bad ones." Reese turned. "I'm leaving the meeting. Goodbye." She walked out the same glass doors Builderman had walked out of a half a minute before.

"S-should I like cancel the meeting or something, 'cause I'm not sure if y'all noticed this just went to total shit?" Telamon continued. "Eeeeh...?"

"I am just so glad Baszucki's off on his pilgrimage again," muttered Dusek, "or I swear he'd smite half of us as an example." He nodded at Telamon. "I think it'd be best if we canceled it, Telamon, if it's all the same to you."

"Good, good," Telamon said nervously. "Now I'm usually opposed to Builderman's harebrained ideas, but... I don't know, I'll try and make him feel better. He's in a bad mood, I guess."

He stood up, and the others did so as well. They filed out of the meeting room, and each Admin and Moderator split off into their own offices lining the main corridor. All that is, except for Telamon. He kept walking. He could see, through the semitransparent floor of the corridor, someone in an orange hard hat walking in the opposite direction one story below, towards the elevators. He broke into a run, pattering down the stairs, turning into a reception hall full of gaudy potted plants and bathed in a strange bluish light by the morning sun shining through the glass walls of Admin Tower.

Builderman was reaching for the elevator control panel.

"WAIT!"

His hand paused, over the down button. Builderman turned, sadness in his eyes. Telamon skidded to a halt in front of the head Admin, not entirely sure why he shouldn't just leave Builderman alone, but knowing that doing so would leave important questions unanswered.

"Look, I'm sorry," Telamon said. "I'm sorry for being a little rude. Does that make you happy?" He bent down, hands on his knees.

Builderman smiled slightly, but it was a worn-out, gray thing. Telamon saw for the first time the new worry lines etched into his face, the shadow around his jaw, the dark patches under his eyes. The hair under Builderman's hard hat was beginning to thin.

"I appreciate it... but it's too late."

"Too late?" Telamon straightened. "B-but... you're my friend. Too late for what?"

"I need to go," Builderman replied. "The darkness I see in the future... it frightens me. I'm frightened, Telamon. _I am frightened. _I see ruin, and I don't want to bring that ruin upon my world. I don't want to be in charge when the ball drops."

He gently pressed the down button.

"I'm sorry," he said, as the elevator doors opened. Before Telamon could say anymore, Builderman had entered the elevator, and was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

_His_ dark-gloved hands were steepled, fingers pointing at the ceiling, the dim orange mood lighting of an underground bunker casting deep shadows over _his_ face and body. Only the gloved hands were visible.

_He_ swiveled in his chair, to look out the window behind him.

Behind _him_, row upon row of security bots, stacked two-hundred stories high, simultaneously switched themselves on.

OOO

Overseer 2 casually relaxed at the coffee bar just outside New Robloxia's largest spaceport, the West End Deposit. The loud and unsubtle ambience of spaceship engines being lit filled the tight room from the outside. A large cruiser temporarily blocked the view of the city, as it flew past diagonally. He sipped his coffee, served in a robust white ceramic mug, and blended the way he liked it: black as it came, burnt to perfection, a French Roast if he'd been human but a Korbloxian Roast because he wasn't. It burnt his tongue, and he set the mug down on the bar top to allow it to cool.

Why did he come? These were the questions Overseer 2 asked himself. The city looked... dingy in the afternoon cloud cover, the tallest skyscrapers piercing halfway through them.

He hadn't initially wanted to return. Overseer 2 had been in the Builder's System, a small solar system at the edge of Robloxian territory. He'd been perfectly happy there. He'd established a shipbuilding business, and it had been going really well. And then one day he'd gotten the strange yearning to return to the planet of his heritage. So he packed up, exchanged farewells, and boarded a cargo frigate to New Robloxia. The journey had taken about a week because the ship didn't have the capability to go to render speed.

Overseer 2 was still experiencing jet lag, so he stood up to get a clearer head and to prevent himself from falling asleep right there. Holding his coffee in his trembling right hand, he took a swig. It was livid hot, but that was how he liked it after long and pointless flights.

Ah yes, now he remembered. He had come to see his brother, who he had not seen for a Grand Year. Overseer 2 recalled he had married Blackrose O'neol and settled down to have a kid, or something. He fished out the grubby postcard Grean had sent to him. It showed Admin Tower in the background, and Grean and Blackrose posing for a picture in front of it.

"That's a nice picture, dearie," said the waitress, who had come up behind him without him noticing. She was around thirty years old, and while all the rest of the staff at this little spaceport cafe were dressed in modest clothes she was dressed in a maid's outfit, which clashed heavily with the futuristic architecture. She was also rather voluptuous.

"W-what picture?" Overseer 2 stammered, hastily shoving it back in his pocket.

"The one ya was just holdin' out there, dearie," the waitress purred. She tried surreptitiously to wrap her arms around Overseer 2's waist, but Overseer 2 shied away.

"Uh, look, I'd rather you didn't do that," he said. "I've had a long flight, and I'm not sure if you're helping."

"Am I not helpin', dearie?" the waitress asked. She undid her top button.

Thirty seconds later, Overseer 2 exited the cafe at a brisk pace.

That was slightly disconcerting, but no matter. He needed to catch the bullet train to the Northwestern Apartment Complex, a roughly spherical building on support legs that was about a mile in circumference. Voluptuous waitresses would have to wait.

He made his way down the corridor heaving with people. It was quite a large corridor, so filling it so full of people that it actually _heaved _was kind of a big deal.

At the far end, it branched off into two smaller corridors. Overseer 2 took the one on the left, and boarded the first bullet train to his destination. As he sat in one of the hard metal seats, next to an enormous man with a full beard who was sound asleep, he glanced out of the window. There appeared to be some small window-cleaner type robots holding a man in a pinstriped suit in midair with their sponge-arms. Overseer 2 turned back. Nothing too interesting.

He glanced back again.

The man in the suit was gone, and the bots were cleaning the nearby window as if nothing had happened. And, to further the illusion, nothing at all _seemed _to have happened.

Overseer 2 dismissed this as just part of the horrendous jet lag from his trip to the planet.

When he next looked down, out of the window, over the stomach of the fat man, there was a highly disconcerting red stain on the sidewalk below the building... and already, some street-cleaning bots were rolling away from the scene, almost as if nothing had happened...

As the steward passed by (this was a long-distance bullet train, and stewards were required to make sure everything went all according to plan), he asked him about the stain. The steward peered out the window to where Overseer 2's finger was pointing.

"What stain?" he asked.

"That one," Overseer 2 said, just in time to realize that the steward couldn't see the stain because they had passed in front of another building.

"I don't see any-"

"Never mind," Overseer 2 muttered, raising a hand. "It's okay, I must be seeing things."

The steward resumed his walk down the aisle. A second later the train bumped a little on the rails and someone to Overseer 2's right spilled their tea. Overseer 2 ignored this, even when the person next to him slumped forward, a feathered dart in his neck...

OOO

Telamon, in his office, put his head in his hands and sighed, long and loud. On the news screen in front of him a grisly scene was playing and re-playing, while the reporter stood superimposed over the carnage.

"BOTS GO ROGUE AT PASS OF THARTAG," the headline read, with a subtitle of "HACKERS IN THE NORTHEAST CORNER SUSPECTED". The reporter was rather grimmer than usual; his television personality was famed for its levity and humorous spin on the news. However, there was nothing humorous to spin today.

_"...that three unidentified black combat helicopters unloaded a squad of combat robots in the middle of a tour group. Casualties are currently unknown. The prime suspect is the hacker group Dark Triad, which is allegedly based in the center of New Robloxia. Builderman, however, is nowhere to be found to comment. Our correspondent Sarah Eddger is here and tells us more. Hi Sarah."_

A gray-haired woman appeared on screen. She looked stern and crisp, in an immaculate gray suit. She was standing in front of the remains of a tour bus, only recognizable because there was still a twisted and bullet-riddled license plate on the front bumper.

_"I've arrived at a scene of complete devastation," _she commented. _"Corpses are scattered all over the place, and there are shards of metal as far as three-hundred meters away. Our ballistics experts say that the explosion was caused by a heat-seeking missile manufactured on Admin Island by the Admin Island Defense Force. Some are already calling this a rampant display of xenophobia. There were many Korbloxians on that tour bus, and most appear to be dead. We have recovered part of a burnt passenger manifest, and apparently around a dozen tourists out of the fifty on-board escaped with their lives. Pundits have begun to call the alleged Dark Triad source 'a hasty government sanctioned cover-up attempt'. As Jimmy Wan, our main anchor, has stated, Builderman is unavailable to-"_

Telamon hurled his remote at the screen, and the display turned off.

"Damn, I need to get him BACK," he growled.

He got up, stomped around his office for a while swiping pens and paper off random surfaces, and sat back down in a huff.

He was at the lowest point in his living memory. Builderman had always remained with Robloxia, and the Admins, through thick and thin, through war and peace and all that therein lay.

This time, something had spooked Builderman. And as far as Telamon could remember, nothing ever spooked Builderman.

He pressed a button on the wall, summoned one of his aides. The robed man hurried up to him, and Telamon bent in close.

"I need you to round up the Admin Island Police Department," he whispered into the aide's ear. "Then tell them to go into the center of New Robloxia, find the Dark Triad, and destroy them. All of them. If they're behind the attacks, we need to clear this up once and for all. Damn the pundits, they can rot, just do what you can."

"I shall go at once," the aide replied, and hurried away, robes lifted away from his feet for ease of running.

From the deep shadows created by the mood lighting in Telamon's office, _he _watched with interest.

OOO

When Grean opened his door fifteen seconds after a knock reverberated through his apartments, he was not entirely sure what to think when he saw his rather disheveled and groggy estranged brother standing in the doorway. Overseer 2 looked like he'd been through a million parsecs of deep space, and every mile of it had sucked away a bit of his soul.

He immediately entered the apartment loudly, protesting about the distressing state of the station he'd gotten off on, and about the lack of cushioned seats in deep space liners, and had plonked himself down in one of the stuffed leather armchairs that made up the furnishing in Grean's reception room. Then he snapped at Grean to get a snack for him (deep space could be such a drag, y'know), apologized in a muffled way for snapping, and then fell asleep right there. Grean left his brother, and was now rummaging through the bottom drawer in his fridge for a bit of cheese, some turkey lunchmeat from little Sylena's lunchbox stash, anything with a few carbs or a little bit of protein in it. He found something which turned out to be a half-eaten chicken leg (oh heck, he thought, at least there's something) and put it on a ceramic plate. Twenty seconds in the microwave, garnish with a slice of rich and smoky gouda from his cheese cabinet, and then he was back in the living room with Overseer 2, who was awake and humming, loudly and off-key, the New Robloxian civic anthem.

"Oh, I love this city," he kept saying in between sporadic bursts of anthem. "Love it to death, I do, oh yes indeed." He rolled his head back and forth like a man possessed. Grean passed him the place with the morsels on it; Overseer 2 snatched the plate and downed the cheese in thirty seconds flat. Then he attacked the chicken leg, tearing off bits of flesh ravenously. Grean sat quietly to the side, watching in case he exploded or did a cartwheel or just dropped dead.

When Overseer 2 finished, he was a lot calmer, although his left foot was twitching.

"I can't bloody stop it," he said absentmindedly. "How are things, bro?"

"Good," was Grean's only reply.

There was a stretch of silence.

"How've things been with you?" Grean asked.

"Oh wonderful, wonderful," Overseer 2 said.

"That's good to hear."

"I went to the Builder's System," Overseer 2 continued, "just for a few months. I set up a nice little faction, got kind of rich, then decided to come back."

"I've been doing good," Grean said. "Um... I just paid my rent. Actually, there isn't much to say."

"Sad, sad," Overseer 2 commented.

"That's a _good_ thing that there isn't much to say," Grean added. "Means not much happens around here. And before you arrived here a day early, nothing much _did_ happen."

"I thought life was about things happening," Overseer 2 said.

"Not when you've got a daughter," Grean replied.

"You what?" Overseer 2 dropped the remaining bone onto his place.

"I said, not when you've got a daughter," Grean repeated.

"Thought you'd have a son," Overseer 2 muttered.

"That's what you'd think," Grean said.

As if on cue, soft footsteps descended the apartment's flight of spiral stairs. They were followed by a tiny figure in a little purple dress, who stopped and stared at the unfamiliar man in the living room. The girl's eyes, huge and multifaceted with the brilliant gold and blue Overseer genetic family colors, took in Overseer 2, who tried to wave but found this to be too much effort.

"Daddy, who's this?" she asked in a clear voice, almost devoid of the soft palate lisp found in other children her age.

"Your uncle, Sylena," Grean said to the little girl. Sylena gazed at Overseer 2, then: "You look like a hobo," she observed.

"Don't say that about people," Grean chided. He looked over, and then back. "Well, he does, but... manners."

Overseer 2 didn't even bother answering.


	3. Chapter 3

It was around 7:35 in the evening.

Kailas sat by the fire, and looked around at the sorry-looking survivors of the brutal tour bus massacre. There were some old people and some kids and one very worried brawny man with a long moustache.

They were encamped in a pit, which they had found already weathered into the side of a steep rocky hill. Even with the fire, it was very, very cold. The mountains near Bloxburg were not famed for their mild temperate climate. They were sharp, bitterly cold, covered in foot-thick shells of black ice. What trees there were had that rough and rugged attribute shared only with the older and more gnarled species of pine.

Only eight of the twelve refugees had survived the first grueling day. Between the stress, the vertiginous heights and mind-twisting depths, and the ever-present fear of robots leaping out and killing them all, there was very little hope. Occilaiczy, the oldest child in the group, had tumbled to his death when he stepped on a patch of black ice, and slid over the edge of a ravine. They'd never heard the body hit the ground. Umpter and Kznajghy had sustained fatal neck and torso injuries when a rock slide had rolled over them. The last victim was eaten by a giant mountain bear, which was a behemoth who stood twenty feet high at the shoulder. They had only escaped because one of the old women had read the tour guide, and knew that mountain bears had horrible eyesight; all they had to do was cover themselves in dust and the bear had thought they were a group of strange looking rocks and moved on.

Kailas was, by default, the leader. She took an active stance on finding a shelter, finding safe places from the avalanches that continually racked the mountainsides, and finding hope in all this new darkness. By Utezai's will, they would survive this.

She passed her hands just over the licking tips of the fire, to keep them warm. The cold was biting into the refugees.

Suddenly, someone to her right collapsed.

"Kailas!" She turned. "Ymallzina just died," the child next to the old dead man gasped in Korbloxian. The corpse's skin was a sickly white fringed with blue.

"Someone get more kindling, our fire's dying!" Kailas ordered. Two refugees hurried off, and tore up handfuls of the dry, withered grass that grew at these altitudes.

"By this point tomorrow," someone muttered, "it won't matter. We'll die eventually."

"Who said that?" Kailas barked, standing and looking around. "Do you have no faith? Does Utezai not guide your thoughts to survival?"

"Utezai is a dead god," the old woman who had spoke earlier grumbled. "He'll get us nowhere."

"Utezai is not dead," Kailas countered. "It was by the will of Utezai that we survived this hellhole. Utezai is life!"

Utezai was the ancestral deity that most living and working Korbloxians worshipped. Kailas had grown up in a highly Utezian family, and during the frantic religious wars that erupted between the Utezians and the Cappilarians their sect had survived and defeated the insurgents. Kailas had grown to have faith in Utezai's will, but she knew there were those that would deny their own salvation.

"We will not give up hope this easily," she ordered. "Good, just place that kindling on the fire..."

A roar, and the fire was leaping and billowing. Warmth spread to the shivering refugees, who huddled closer to the blaze. Kailas watched, satisfied.

"Remember, if we do not act in pursuit of our goals," she said, "he will not help us."

There was no further argument on the part of the old woman.

"Ichan," Kailas said to the girl on her other side, "can you please go over to the ridge over there and keep a look-out? Here," she added, passing Ichan a woolen blanket. Ichan took it, wrapped it around herself, and scurried to a rocky outcrop just at the edge of the pit, where she clambered up and vanished from sight.

From her perspective, as Ichan emerged into the bitter night, she could discern everything so clearly her eyes stung. A large cluster of lights in the distance was New Robloxia. Some other unknown cities and towns blazed like bonfires near the larger mega-city. Ragged strips of tattered cloud brushed the landscape, forming a sheathe when they came to the foot of the mountain. She could see small forests and mountain streams, and all the stuff she had read about in the tour guide, only stunningly real.

She could also see, in the distance, a searchlight. Its source was weaving erratically through the air about two miles above New Robloxia. It was drawing nearer to the mountains.

"Kailas!" she called, turning her head.

Kailas whirled and saw the black and green quad-rotor helicopters bearing down on them from all sides. The craft swiftly landed and extended docking ramps. Heavily armored troops poured out, and surrounded the refugees. Kailas saw they carried heavy assault rifles and electro-swords in sheathes on their left hips. She also saw the white letter R surrounded by a filled-in red circle emblazoned on their breastplates.

"Don't shoot, these are the Korbloxians," a voice shouted in Robloxian from within one of the quad-rotors. A figure descended the ramp. The figure wore gray robes with delicate embroidery around the seams, and he appeared to have antlers growing out of a powerfully built blue head. The eyes in that head burned like fire.

Dusek, Kailas thought. I've heard of this Admin.

Dusek strode to the front of the group, and examined the refugees.

"Dan knessir ae utezor?" Dusek inquired in Korbloxian to Kailas. Do you style yourself as leader?

"I do," Kailas replied. "You are Dusek?"

"I am Dusek," Dusek said, in perfect Korbloxian. He even had the subtle accent down.

"Why have you come for us?" Kailas asked.

"We heard you were up here," Dusek replied. "You were lucky. The tour bus was in tatters when I arrived just a few hours ago."

"How did you hear of our location," Kailas snapped.

"Satellites," Dusek said in Robloxian. "Sorry," he added in Korbloxian, "but as far as I know your language doesn't have a word for them."

He led Kailas to the entrance of the quad-rotor he had disembarked from.

"Get your people in here," he ordered. "We're taking you somewhere safe."

"Where-?"

"No time, do as I say."

Kailas barked some orders in Korbloxian, and her people followed her aboard the quad-rotor, which quickly folded up its ramp and lifted off from the ground. Dusek motioned for a half-dozen troops to follow him into a separate quad-rotor, which did the same. G-forces slammed into the troops as the quad-rotor spun from the ground, regaining balance at around 10,000 blox. From the small window in the side of the craft, Dusek could see the quad-rotor with the searchlight halt above the campsite, and blow it to bits with several precisely-calculated plasma waves. No evidence they had been there remained.

"When we get back to the city," he said to the on-duty captain, "run to Admin Tower. Get authorization to unlock The Crypt again. We might need to place the refugees in there for the time being..."

"Yes, M'lord," the captain said, nodding.

"I just hope it's still functioning properly," Dusek muttered under his breath, before clasping a handrail to prepare for the buffets of turbulence over the planet's largest city.

OOO

"So Overseer 2," Blackrose O'Neol said lightly, passing the plate of roast to her brother-in-law, "how did your business go?"

"Business, business, huh... well, it went pretty well at first," Overseer 2 recounted, slicing a chunk of meat off the dead Epic Duckling and sliding it onto his plate, next to the small host of vegetables and the wedge of cheese already present.

"So tell me," Blackrose enthused.

"Uhhh... well, let's just say there was an acute case of clan warfare that we (that is my team and I) helped to simmer down. I think it's still going on 'round Tan with Moons. Of course everything bad happens 'round Tan with Moons." Overseer 2 took a bite out of his Duck, and looked up when he saw Grean and Blackrose exchanging looks that said, in his meaningful look glossary, "memories". He changed the subject.

"So how are things going over here?" he asked of Blackrose.

"Pretty good," Blackrose replied. "Last month I got a job at the Robloxian Central Bank."

"How's that?" asked Overseer 2. "Boring, I exp-"

"Two cases of fraud in a day," Blackrose sighed. "My first day on the job, I wasn't authorized for the main investigation, but I remember we collaborated with the RPD. The fraud originally came from Robloxity, it seemed."

"I thought Robloxity blew up and they couldn't rebuild it because there were mile-deep pits in the ground," Overseer 2 interrupted.

"That was a while back," Blackrose said. "A lot's changed in two Grand Years."

"So I've seen," Overseer 2 remarked. "Though I couldn't help noticing there's still no law against making advances on male customers in the bloody spaceport."

"That's nothing to talk about at table," Blackrose scorned. "There are kids in here!"

"Actually just one," Overseer 2 corrected.

The child in question was sitting at the head of the table, chewing on a bit of Duck and fixing Overseer 2 with a piercing stare.

"She doesn't talk much, does she?" Overseer 2 remarked.

"No, but when Sylena does she's... far beyond her years," Grean said. "She's six, and she knows how to solve quadratic equations."

"Starblox," Overseer 2 swore, but under his breath. "That's one smart kid."

"Tell me about it," Grean said. "We had her evaluated by a professional. The professional said that... she is experiencing brain development... around eight times faster than standard Robloxians. She should be at college when she's ten!"

"Not just college, at University," Blackrose added. "We have her enrolled as a freshman in Admin Island High School. They've given her all sorts of scholarships so she can afford her tutelage. She just killed it at Algebra, and now they've bumped her all the way up to Basic Trig because she did some studying over the summer and actually finished the textbook in a month."

"And to think all I ever did was stop an invasion," Overseer 2 breathed.

"With my help," Grean added.

"With your help, yes, but I did kill Sissory in the end," Overseer 2 said. "What's on the tube?"

"Probably just Puzzle of Chairs again," Blackrose said, sliding her hand over to the TV remote and activating the flat screen TV sitting against the wall to Overseer 2's left. A burst of static, then the news flickered on. A fat man sat, dead, with a dart in his neck. Blackrose changed the channel. The image of a balding used car salesman appeared.

"Are you having problems starting your car," the salesman bellowed. "Then head on down to-"

Blackrose changed the channel.

Overseer 2, who had watched with disinterest, suddenly started in his seat. He snatched the remote from Blackrose's hands, and flicked all the way back to the news broadcast.

"What the heck are you doing?" Blackrose demanded.

"Shut up, sis, I'm trying to work this here," Overseer 2 growled. The feed was becoming a little blotchy. This happened once in a while when the transmission was coming from the big city. Radio wave interference and subsonic vibrations, that sort of thing. But he could see the picture of the dead fat man in the right hand corner, and the anchor sitting in a chair surrounded by men in differently colored suits.

"-your opinions, gentlemen, on the sudden assassination of Rush Chellenbaum, Chief Director of Robotics at the Admin Island AI Central Command," the anchor said. "To new listeners, this has been THE breaking news story today, what're your opinions gentlemen?" From the left, Wukong, a lesser Admin, spoke up.

"I don't know much about this, I just heard about it an hour ago, in fact. But the fact he was on a train when this occurred suggests that someone knew exactly where he was going to be, exactly when he was going to be there, and what he'd be doing when he got there. It sounds like an inside job."

"RPD Chief Angelica, what's your opinion?" the anchor said, to the shorter woman opposite Wukong.

"It DOES sound like an inside job, but who would be so stupid as to kill Chellenbaum while the assassin is under his employ? Doesn't the Administration keep tabs on all government employees?"

"It does," said Telamon, the third pundit on the screen. "But there was nobody else from the Admin Island AI Central Command on the train at that time. Either they removed their tracking chip back on Admin Island, or, frankly, the perpetrator wasn't a person to begin with."

"Why is this important?" hissed Blackrose to Overseer's back.

"I recognize the guy," Overseer 2 said intently.

"Well, of course you do. Everyone recognizes Telamon," Blackrose snapped.

"No, I mean the dead guy, Chellenburger or whatever," Overseer 2 replied. "We were sitting next to each other on the same train that took me over here... the same one he was murdered on!"

"So you're saying the perpetrator was not... a Robloxian?" Wukong pressed.

"I don't know yet," Telamon replied. "Again, it could have been someone with a missing chip. We don't know yet."

"How would you remove a chip embedded in your spine without causing serious nerve damage, Robloxian or not?"

"That's the mystery," Telamon admitted.

"So there's a good chance it was a Bot," Angelica said.

The fourth pundit, one who had been silent until this moment, spoke.

"But you must remember in this situation," the pundit said, "that the real prime suspects are not bots, but a hacker group, Dark Triad. Hackers have, in the past, damaged government infrastructure. They have, in the past, assumed roles as government employees, except only temporarily, via a scanner screen. Who's to say that Dark Knot has not done this? A Bot would be an excellent decoy for a hacker group of their caliber."

"Bloody hell," Wukong said, jaw dropping. "Now that is what I call thinking outside the bloody box."

"Cinos," the anchor said, turning to the mysterious fourth pundit, "do you really think this happened?"

"I have irrefutable evidence," Cinos said.

"Really?"

"Watch," Cinos said, and made a hand gesture. The display changed to a grainy security camera clip. A bustle of employees in what was presumably the AI Command Center was shown. "Pause," said Cinos, and the clip stopped in its tracks. "Zoom in to that desk," he continued. The footage zoomed into a desk in the middle of the picture. At another command, the keyboard was zoomed into and slightly amplified, enough that Overseer 2 could see individual letters. "Resume the tape."

As the tape resumed, the man sitting at the desk typed out something in a split second. The tape, however, had been slightly altered to show a line of text that corresponded with the man's finger clicks.

It read, in bold text: Tis noxfix ej diasfix.

"What does that mean?" Cinos asked rhetorically. "Well, gentlemen, this is a code language called Fixtet. What this says is, 'I am Night in a Day." Six syllables. The Dark Triad worships the number six, as it indirectly states the dual nature of three, the Triad. This is the Dark Triad's calling card. The fact that it's in Fixtet seals the evidence. The assassination of Rush Chellenbaum is the work of the Dark Triad, gentlemen."

"So it seems to be," the anchor murmured, a look of awe on his face. "Ladies and gentlemen watching this, the assassination of Director Chellenbaum is solved. The Adminship has already posted a blog article declaring war on the Dark Triad, just a few seconds ago."

"Can't believe it," Angelica said aloud. The pundits all got up and filed out of the conference room, as the anchor signed off, and the news station switched to other top stories.

Overseer 2 turned the TV off and handed the remote back to Blackrose.

"They're missing a clue," he murmured. "They're missing it, and it was right there."

He stood up from the table.

"Sorry, bro, sis, but I really have to dash," he explained hurriedly.

"What, why?" Blackrose and Grean stuttered.

"I have to find out who really killed Chellengoizer," Overseer 2 said, lunging towards the door, snatching his long brown trenchcoat from its hook next to the door, and opening it. Grean stood up and ran to his brother's side.

"Why does it matter, come eat with us, it'll all sort itself out in the end," he begged.

"Can't," Overseer 2 said. "Something fucked up is going on here. I aim to find out what before some crazy shit goes down."

"Then I'm coming with you," Grean said, crossing his arms.

"Fine," Overseer 2 snapped. "Tell Blackrose to stay with... uh, Sylia 'till we get back!"

"Sylena," Grean corrected.

"Thank you," Overseer 2 said, "but tell her!"

He hurried out onto the ledge, and hailed a megabus. The huge blue steel craft came to a halt alongside the house, extended a set of stairs. The pilot looked over and beckoned for them to enter. Overseer 2 did so, making sure to pay the fifty Tix fine for both of them. They sat in two of the megabus' hard metal seats.

"You brought a weapon, right?" Overseer 2 asked.

"My delhammer, same as always," Grean replied. "You?"

"Pistol," Overseer 2 replied. "Energy carbine. Same as always."

"Let's get to it then," Grean said.

"Let's do it."


	4. Chapter 4

The megabus pulled up at Seven-thousandth and Pitch. Inside the megabus, Overseer 2 pointed.

"There's the building I saw the man get dropped from!" he said.

"What man?"

"Never mind, I'll explain later," said Overseer 2, running out of the megabus onto the steel bridge a thousand feet above the packed streets below. A lag filter shimmered beneath them. Smaller bridges connected the buildings lining the walkway to the larger bridge. There were no handrails.

Grean leaped out, landing beside Overseer 2 on his knees. He straightened, and cast a glance at the building. It was one of those old-style black-framed buildings, with dark blue semi-opaque windows. From 2010, or thereabouts. Not terribly inspiring or anything. But the sidewalk in front of the building was quite interesting, because in one particular section about a meter in diameter there was a small amount of dried blood.

The sidewalk wasn't empty; there were a few hundred pedestrians, briefcases in hand. This was a business district, one of over a dozen separate ones in New Robloxia. Grean and Overseer 2 brushed their way through the crowd.

"Sorry," Overseer 2 mumbled as he almost knocked over an old lady with his shoulder.

They arrived at the doors of the office building, and stood there awkwardly.

"You knock," Grean said, "this is your trip."

Overseer 2 knocked reluctantly on the door. Immediately afterwards, a remote security camera dropped down from the second floor on a telescopic arm. It swung its gaze directly onto Overseer 2. A set of speakers emerged from hatches on either side of its body.

_"State your business," _a mechanical voice rasped from the speakers.

"We've come to inspect the building," Overseer 2 said, keeping his tone as flat and dull as possible to elude suspicion.

_"Do you have a permit?" _snapped the voice.

"We're top-level inspectors, we don't need a permit," Grean said. "By order of the Admins."

This security system was obviously secondhand, probably coded and assembled only slightly after the building was erected. Its lens blinked a little to refresh its video RAM.

_"The front desk has been alerted," _it said.

The doors swung inward on hydraulic hinges. Overseer 2 and Grean entered, and the doors snapped shut behind them in a fraction of a second.

"I didn't think I'd get that far," Overseer 2 whispered.

"I think that was the easy part," Grean whispered back.

There was a polished desk in front of them, in the shape of a half-ring. Behind it sat three secretaries. They were each hooked to computer systems, which appeared to be attached to their temples and to the backs of their heads. Blinking lights could be seen embedded into their left eyes. Recorders, Grean guessed. Obviously the security cameras weren't the only line of defense this building had. It seemed, on the inside, to be more modern than its practically ancient exterior. This building must have been really important to somebody, or else why would they make it look so unobtrusive?

A secretary rose to its feet.

"Follow me," it ordered. "I will operate the elevator for you. The business floor is floor 16. All inspectors go there."

"Thank you," Overseer 2 said. They followed the secretary into a cramped elevator car, whose doors closed with a whir and a little self-satisfied hum. The numbers on the floor counter changed every two seconds or so. In a remarkably short amount of time they emerged on the sixteenth floor of the office building. It was a nice little area, not too fancy, much like the lobby in aesthetics, only much, much higher up. From here they could see distant wedges of the city beyond. A fleet of cargo cruisers emerged from render space just at the cusp of the stratosphere, and a sonic boom, prevalent in these highly urbanized parts, slammed into the building. Glass vibrated slightly, then settled.

"Oh - oh, excuse me, are you from the government?"

The two saw a frail old man hobbling towards them. He wore a pinstripe suit almost identical to the one on the man Overseer 2 had seen. His head was completely bald, and he wore no special gear.

"We're from the government, yes," Grean said.

"Are you here about the suicide yesterday?" the old man asked, leaning on a walking stick heavily.

"Yes," Overseer 2 said, seizing upon the mention. "Only we don't think it's a suicide. We think it was a murder."

"A murder? Oh me. You boys better be certain."

"We are. Can you show us the scene?"

"Yes. In fact it's just over here." The old man beckoned for them to follow.

The scene was in front of one of the blue-tinted windows. The old man stopped, and pointed at the carpeting.

"That blue tape is where we think he jumped from," he explained querulously. "He pushed one of the cleaning robots back while it had its suctions cups on the glass, and took a good long jump, and died."

"And the Bot replaced it afterwards?" Overseer 2 asked.

"Yes," the old man said.

"I think I witnessed the murder, Mister... uhh..."

"Pearson," the old man said. "You think you witnessed Stan's death?"

"Yes," Overseer 2 replied. "I think I did. Around seven hours ago on my way from the space- from the commerce district, I boarded a train, wherein around five minutes later I passed your building. Your friend... Stan was hanging in midair. But he wasn't falling yet. One of your cleaning robots was holding him there. The next time I looked, Stan was falling to his death and a street cleaning Bot down below was cleaning up the evidence."

"Good golly," the old man Pearson said, leaning backwards against a wall, hand over his heart. "That's why you were calling it a murder... do you think you could check around the office and find those bots? There's a storage floor where we keep them, down in the basement."

"I suppose we could do that," Grean said.

"Good. I'll just lend out you boys the key, but you better bring it back, y'hear?"

"Yes, sir," Overseer 2 said, smiling in a reassuring way. He took the keys from the old man's gnarled, varicose-veined hand.

As they boarded the elevator to take them down to the basement floors, a small camera drone flew past the window, although nobody saw it.

From the bunker underground, however, _he _saw, and heard, everything.

OOO

Telamon still sat at his desk, only this time he wasn't alone. His fellow Admins Dusek and Tarabyte sat before him. Behind Telamon, in the courtyard below Admin Tower, a squad of fifty Admin Guards were performing drills. Faint shouts and barked orders wafted through the glass of Telamon's office. Over at the far coastline of Admin Island, a ship was docking. It carried arms to replenish one of the Admin Island Police Department's storage houses, which had flooded with muddy noxious water the year before and needed a complete refurbishment.

The new chief Admin was thinking of his own fate.

He had, only two Grand Years previously, died from a rocket attack. After Ro-War III had ended, he had been resurrected by Admin Magic, but his death still marked the end of one phase of his life, and the beginning of another.

Perhaps this was what made Telamon less concerned with the state of other planets, other worlds he'd only visit once, or never at all, and more concerned with the troubled planet he helped to rule. Robloxia was, for all the Admins had done for it, fractured in a fairly fundamental way. Wars ravaged half of it, and the rest had fallen to corruption and urban blight, leaving only a few patches of the planet (and the majority of the vast ocean) untouched. Other worlds were less fragmented, less divided, more united under their own banners or under the banner of Robloxia. But here, in the place Robloxian society had ballooned out into hitherto unexplored corners of the codescape, the future looked bleak.

Telamon's death had shown him the world he felt could live more or less without his care actually needed more care than he thought. But his care had caused more unrest. The player points system was a complete fiasco, and the great glass and steel Leaderboard in the courtyard stood as an ivy covered monument to a failing government. The actions of Spectre Branch, the RPD, and the Greenwood Police Department in helping to monitor drug use and violent crime were honorable, but since then the drugs and violence and pain had spread elsewhere on the planet.

And now there was this damned Dark Triad business. Blast it all to the edge of creation, drown it in its own wretched bile until it breathed its last. This was possibly the excuse the damned pundits had been waiting for. They found every bloody opportunity to blame the government, the Moderators, the Admins for all the problems plaguing Robloxia and its neighboring planets and moons. The Dark Triad was simply the latest group to vie for power in this new complicated world.

Back in Grand Year 2012, it had been an easier life. No terrorism, not much crime except in the big city where the Adminship could actually deal with it. There were straightforward threats to the universe, like SonicXX's FEAR trying to steal the Roblox Code, now barely remembered except as a tale veterans told their children and grandchildren. The planet had been verdant, wild, unpredictable.

Now, everything had fallen to the ravages of the new bureaucracy. The damned paper-pushers who made things the way they were today. The damned pundits who extolled on the values of communism or a totalitarian state with one leader, and who controlled governors and mayors like their own little puppets. And the damned people who had been none the wiser to their conniving, their scheming, and allowed themselves to be ensnared by this new state of fear and paranoia that surrounded every new piece of news, that surrounded their lives so impermeably that they were willing to believe any damned lie about the damned Adminship and the damn, damn government. And the trouble was, those lies, at least a majority of them, were mostly based in fact.

Telamon felt like he sat upon a throne of hollow glass, surrounded by men with hammers who knew not the glass' thickness, and who would carve and carve the throne into their own images until it couldn't take the battery and shattered into a billion warring fragments spitting into each-other's eyes and paving the streets in Robloxian corpses.

Builderman would have known what to do. But Builderman wasn't here. Telamon knew nothing of where Builderman even was, or what he was doing, or whether he was even alive.

He hated his old friend now, but loved him. Hated him for leaving, but loved him for what he represented: a society that once was clean and pure of heart.

As Telamon looked at the two across from him, he remembered the two as they had been on the day of his death. Tarabyte had, of course, caused his death, when she ousted Builderman. But now she'd changed dramatically, become wiser to the world as she became more mature as an Admin. Dusek? A mere military organizer. Not this forger of peace he was today, not this vanguard of the Admins.

Dusek shifted his weight a little in his seat.

"The refugees," he began, "are safely in The Crypt, Telamon."

"The Crypt? I thought that place was obsolete, falling apart at the seams!"

"The concrete is still strong. The blast doors are in good shape," Dusek replied.

"And how long will they be in there?" Telamon asked.

"Until the situation is resolved," the antlered and robed Admin said. "At that time we will notify the Korbloxian High Regent and his court that the refugees are safe."

"And now they're informed of the development, I assume."

"Indeed."

"Well what exactly did you call us here for, besides news, Telamon?" Tarabyte asked, fidgeting.

"I want you to do me a really big favor," Telamon said. "I want you to find Builderman for me."

"Alright," Dusek said. "Shall we go down to the Scrying Room?"

"The..."

"We just had it installed," Tarabyte sighed, flipping a strand of hair over her shoulder. She pressed a switch-button on the arm of her chair. The three occupants of the office vanished, reappearing in three identical chairs a hundred stories below. This was the sub-basement level of Admin Tower, the negative-fifth floor.

Rather occult superstitions held that a building with negative-numbered floors, as opposed to a building with a few basements, was a place that housed strange arcane magic and blips in the fabric of reality. This was only _partially_ correct. Negative-numbered floors housed _normal _arcane magic. At least, normal for the Admins, who were the only ones who could build and de-saturate negative floors.

As Telamon looked around, he realized his vision had become monochrome. Completely monochrome. The magic and unnatural code fluctuations gave the darkness an eerie glow of its own, creating a strange feeling of unfinished shadows and dulled senses.

In the exact geographic center of the hexagonal sub-basement Scrying Room was a pedestal, about four blox high, and atop the pedestal was a crystal ball of exactly two meters in diameter. Its depths seemed to stretch back endlessly into a deep, deep purple, while in reality the glass that made up the ball was a pale pink.

The ball also rolled erratically and without any sort of artificial input, within an appropriately sized cavity, carved right into the marble of the pedestal.

Tarabyte sat in front of the crystal ball, placing her hands on the front.

"It needs body heat to create any sort of kineto-psychic link," she explained. The crystal ball flashed crimson for a second, then slowly faded back to its normal pinkness. Tarabyte muttered to herself as she bent down, still keeping a hand on the crystal ball, and pulled open a stone drawer in the pedestal. Stepping inside it with her right foot, she pressed down hard on a pedal, and the crystal ball increased its rotation speed drastically. Telamon could hear it grinding against the marble. It was a sound not altogether dissimilar to the scrape of fine silverware on teeth. He squirmed in discomfort briefly. The crystal ball, after a minute, slowed to a crawl, and then abruptly jerked to a halt.

Behind the polished surface there emerged blurry figures. Tarabyte pressed down on the pedal again, with less force this time, resulting in the image sharpening, just a little, but enough to see facial features.

A man in a cloak sat at a table. Opposite him, another cloaked figure sat, although the way in which he sat, his stiff-backed regality, his hands steepled in front of himself, gave away his identity as Builderman. Builderman's face was obscured by the shadows, but Telamon could see through a window between them, out into a wild landscape of twisting trees, with a sky the color of bile. Mists rolled between the trees, almost hiding the brick-red, grass-tufted ground below.

"That looks familiar," Telamon said aloud.

"Pardon?"

"The landscape," Telamon elaborated quickly. He pointed to the window. "The trees, the sky, the mists all over the place, the ground... everything looks familiar. It looks like maybe Mordres V."

"Mordres V." Dusek leaned towards Telamon. "That makes sense, actually. Builderman wanted to get away from here. So he must have hitched a lift from the spaceport on one of the unlisted flights, to there. Mordres V is situated in a natural shield of rock and ice debris, thus communications would be difficult."

"The perfect escape plan," Tarabyte remarked.

"But Builderman," Telamon said, turning slightly away, "would only be close to Robloxia if he knew he would eventually be coming back..."

"What brings you to that conclusion?"

"Well, fugitives-"

"He's not a fugitive," Dusek said, looking affronted.

"Okay, maybe he's not one, but still, _people who want to get away _get as far away as possible as quickly as they can. We find 'em in the _Builder's_ System, for crying out loud, and that's a _hell_ of a long ways away." Telamon stood up, and turned back to face them. "Builderman's not gonna leave this place so easily, especially after leading it for nine Grand Years."

"But what the hemorrhaging _fuck_ is he doing on a dead-end planet like Mordres V?" Tarabyte asked sharply.

"He's trying to find somewhere where he can think quietly, because he knows something we don't about what's happening... and what's _going_ to happen."

"Prescience?"

"Hell no. Just intuition. Something _big _is happening, Tara," Telamon exclaimed suddenly, grabbing her by the shoulders and staring intently into her eyes open wide in surprise.

"What do you think he knows?" she quavered.

"Everything."


	5. Chapter 5

A man in a cloak sat at a table. Opposite him, another cloaked figure sat, although the way in which he sat, his stiff-backed regality, his hands steepled in front of himself, gave away his identity as Builderman.

The man across from Builderman was rugged-looking, with twisting locks of dark, knotted hair falling across a dark-skinned, weathered face. A band of cloth covered both eyes, but his hands, arranging their two drinks with deftness and skill, were unhindered. In fact he moved like a panther, with a grace that defied his blindness.

His name was known to Builderman. They had met... well, re-met... years ago during Builderman's forced exile in Ro-War III. This blind man had helped Builderman cross the two planets of Shadeblox and Testblox into each-other, creating the fortunate lag-burst which had allowed Overseer 2 to escape Banland.

The blind man was also the last person anyone would expect to be a friend and ally of the Admins, especially one so high-up as Builderman.

He was, at one point, the most infamous man on Robloxia.

His name was Dignity.

Dignity, the exploiter who had sunk a city. Dignity, the man who had subsequently embezzled money into a fund to create a rogue botnet uniting all the (then around fifty) huge and impractically complicated AIs under one banner of conquest. Dignity, the interstellar fugitive, wanted for years before being declared dead by the Adminship in Grand Year 2010, the same year the first Ro-War erupted and tossed the whole of the galaxy into a brief and bloody conflict. Dignity, the now very alive and kicking newly-minted force for good in this star system. Builderman knew the power of good in the hands of the formerly wicked who now saw the inevitability of death and saw a way to atone for their sins.

This was the new self he appealed to.

"Shall we say a payment of half a million Robux?" he offered.

The flash of a smile beneath Dignity's hood sealed the deal.

OOO

The basement was dark and eerie and smelled of tin and rot and of the despair found floating in puddles around nine o'clock at night when all the bars had closed and all the cars had driven through the puddles leaving a residue of gas and rubber and, deep down, the knowledge that this was all leading nowhere, that the fetid cycle would begin anew the next day when they had to pick up something from the store.

The subtle interplay of symbolism and odor was lost on the two Robloxians who were, even now, dancing with darkness.

Overseer 2 held a proton torch at half-power in one gloved hand. The bright blue glow of the proton torch was sheltered in a heat shield that had been hammered into transparency. If this sounded like anything new to the perpetually out-of-the-know Overseer 2, he didn't admit it. Beside him, Grean held a similar torch, only kept at full glow.

It was a risk, bringing such a bright light down into such a dark, damp, murky and mysterious space as the basement of an old building from years ago, Overseer 2 knew. But Robloxians weren't bats. The two needed light.

As the two, along with the old man Pearson, had descended via service elevator into the basement levels, the elderly manager had slipped Overseer 2 a piece of paper containing the serial number of the bots at work on that quadrant of the building, on the fateful day of the suspected murder.

"Take this number and feed it into the Bot Module," he had advised.

"The what?"

"A Bot Module," Grean had cut in, "is a little blue box on the wall that you enter a code into, and which then gives you the missions or attributes of the Bot in question."

He couldn't see a blue box anywhere, and they had looked for the past half an hour. But he felt that the basement extended farther than they had gone.

The two turned a corner, and stopped.

Row upon row of window cleaning bots glistening in the fetid darkness made for an eerie sight. Their skeletal frames hung limply from structures, almost like coat hangers, bolted into the concrete ceiling. And at the end of the row was a blue box, just a small one about a blox in length and a half-blox in width, with only an inch or so of depth. They approached the Bot Module with sudden trepidation.

"I never liked bots as a kid," Grean muttered. "They were always watching, it felt like."

They looked to their sides at the racks of cleaning bots. In the dark they looked like prison bars, glinting evilly.

When they had arrived, Overseer 2 got to work. Flipping out a small control panel from the bottom of the Bot Module, he set about tapping in the ten-digit code of this particular robot. After he pressed the enter key, the panel slid back into the box, and there was a soothing grumbling of machinery. A moment later a similar panel popped out of the top, showing a set of technical specifications for the robot.

_DESIGNATION: Eve 7  
>AGE: Two Grand Years<br>PRIMARY FUNCTION: Window Cleaning, High-Altitude Maintenance  
>SECONDARY FUNCTION: (REDACTED)<br>(SECURITY CLEARANCE NEEDED)  
>(QUERY?)<em>

Overseer 2 stepped back, and swore under his breath.

"Bastard," he muttered.

"What's wrong?" Grean asked.

"Pearson. The fucking old man. He didn't give us security clearance," Overseer 2 exploded.

"We'll go back up and get it then," Grean said wearily, turning on his heel.

And he froze in place as a red beam stabbed out of the darkness. The sound of gears grinding followed, and soon heavy metallic footsteps rang out. They were coming closer.

Grean, out of instinct, drew his delhammer. It shone in the light of the proton torch. Overseer 2 flicked his proton torch to full glow and held it out in front of him like a wand. The glow fell on pale gray skin and exposed circuitry. One of the eerily quiet, eerily efficient secretaries had come down to inspect them.

"Shit," Overseer 2 breathed.

He knew they had every illicit right to be down here; they had gotten clearance. But still he saw the purposeful way the secretary walked... or rather lurched in their direction.

He suddenly had bad memories of the advancing zombie horde on Javion, all those years ago in the height of Ro-War II.

This mechanical zombie shambled in the same way the organic ones used to.

_"The master has sent a surveillance worker to oversee you," _it rasped as it halted at the mouth of the alleyway of Bots.

"Tell him we're government agents, we can look after ourselves," said Grean matter-of-factly.

_"I cannot do this," _the secretary replied. _"I am under prime orders."_

"Prime orders, my left foot," Grean snapped. "Go find your boss and tell him-"

_"I cannot do this. I am under prime orders."_

"You're diggin' us deeper, bro," Overseer 2 said out of the corner of his mouth to Grean.

"Can I overrule your orders?" Grean queried.

_"You cannot overrule our orders."_

"Can I _manually _overrule your orders?"

_"Our orders are set."_

"Fine, fine," Grean said hotly, turning back and examining the panel.

Overseer 2 didn't.

He was still squinting at the secretary, an idea forming in his mind that he couldn't quite put to words.

He spoke around the sudden lump in his throat.

"Grean?"

Grean didn't even bother to turn. "Yes?" he said.

"When that secretary was talking earlier," Overseer 2 began, then paused. He continued in a lower voice, feigning that he was craning over Grean's shoulder. "When the secretary was talking," he continued, "did you notice the change? 'I cannot do this' becomes 'You cannot overrule _our _orders.' _Our _orders."

Grean stopped fiddling with the controls. As the silence of realization pressed into them, they could detect more footsteps. More heavy, shambling, uneven, metallic footsteps. _Pa-click, click, shhhhh click, pa-click._

They both turned. A dozen secretaries, more than were upstairs in the lobby, faced them. The waifish one from the front desk was still there, but the other eleven appeared to be rather heavier and more pointy than the profession called for. This was the brute squad, they guessed correctly.

_"You are to come with us," _the secretary said. _"No deviation will be tolerated. Follow us and nobody will have to die."_

"Wait, hold on," said Overseer 2, shaking a finger, "you can't do this. We're government agents. We can shut you down, y'know."

_"No deviation will be tolerated."_

Grean tensed his right wrist in preparation for action. Overseer 2 twisted slightly to the side, deliberately facing his gun holster away from the secretaries.

_"You will follow u-"_

Overseer 2 raised the laser pistol and fired two scorching shots into the secretary's neck. The secretary toppled backwards, limbs twitching violently and sparks flying from the wound. The brute squad advanced on the brothers; as they did so, they noticed the right thighs of each unit slide open and deposit what looked like miniature antimatter colliders into their steel mitts.

"Get behind the bots!" Overseer 2 shouted as, like one unit, they raised the cannons to their hips and discharged a volley of superheated balls of energy right at their targets. The two brothers dove in opposite directions. Overseer 2 landed, rolled along his shoulders, propelled himself upright on his left side, and ran into the darkness, blindly. On the other side, Grean cannoned into the hanging Bots, bowled through them, and raised his delhammer. Then he brought the hammer down on the ground hard enough to disintegrate the concrete pad under him and launch him up into the air. He brushed the ceiling and grabbed onto an exposed metal pipe. The delhammer hung from his right hand, and as a brute reached up at him to bring him down he swung the hammer into the side of the brute's head. There was a pop as the brute's head vanished, with a small cloud of metal dust remaining; the decapitated body toppled to the side, blocking the uncertain motion of several other brutes.

Overseer 2 saw a glint of light from his right side, and knew too late it was another brute secretary as it emerged and raised both arms to club him down. Instinct brought Overseer 2's pistol in the direction of the brute's left hip socket, and he pulled the trigger with a satisfying flash. The ball of the brute's cybernetic leg came undone, and Overseer 2 lashed out with a foot, knocking the brute sideways and onto the floor, where it couldn't right itself in time to avoid the second laser blast, which screamed into the brute's right temple.

Grean landed amongst a group of five brutes. Before they could act he swung the hammer 360 degrees. Random body parts were deleted in short order, and the remaining parts fanned out in a circle of mechanical carnage, sliding away from Grean. The remaining brutes primed their guns for another shot, but Grean was already charging towards them, slamming the hammerhead into each of them in quick succession. In no time at all he was surrounded by a grisly pile of twisted metal and limbs.

"Let's get to the elevator," Overseer 2 said, passing Grean. The brothers fell into step, making haste to the elevator doors, which still stood ajar. They entered, the doors snapped shut, and the car made its rickety way up to the lobby.

Overseer 2 popped the clip from his pistol grip, looked at it, turning it over a few times. The plasma inside the transparent plastic clip was getting worn out, so Overseer 2 inserted the clip into a small power charger resting on his hip just under the pistol holster. Then he rummaged around in the area under his coat. His face fell. His hand returned to his side.

"What's wrong?" asked Grean.

"I left my backup pistol on the ship that brought me to this rock," Overseer 2 muttered.

"Well, you won't _need _the backup," Grean said.

"Who says?" Overseer 2 fixed his brother with a piercing glare, unhampered by his unfortunate lack of the Overseer Family's eye pigmentation. "One thing I've learned in all my years - and by whatever gods there are up there, those were some hard years - is that a little backup makes all the difference. It's better to come over-prepared than not at all."

"One thing I've learned is through peace comes strength," Grean said.

"Funny to 'ear that coming from the guy who killed, like, twenty Bots back in the basement," Overseer 2 shot back, as the elevator doors opened onto the lobby. Which was full of cops.

"That's them," Pearson exclaimed, pointing to the two. The cop beside them turned his head to examine them. "That's them," Pearson repeated. "The impostors!"


End file.
